You've decided where to place your new planting bed, what size it should be and now you face the ominous task of choosing the plants that go inside it. There are thousands of plants. How do you whittle them down?  The first thing I do is create a possible list of plants, then sit down and draw my...

To help my students understand the concept of garden rooms, I created an activity called The Pop-Up Garden.  When temperatures drop, I thought this might also be a fun indoor activity for garden groups, individuals or families wanting to plan their garden spaces.  Keep this in mind: ...

We are currently learning about color pencil in my landscape graphics class, so I made this tutorial on rendering a plant symbol for my students.  As with most of my drawings, I tend to keep it pretty simple in hopes you'll experiment with color a bit as you design your garden. Don't forget to ch...

A couple of weeks ago we had the opportunity to visit Disney World for spring break.  I think I was just as excited as my kids (maybe even more).  I had two big reasons for my enthusiasm - an opportunity to spend an entire week with my family sans electronics, plus the good fortune of being immer...

Once the holidays end in December, it seems that January and February can dwell on as we yearn for spring to arrive. To add a bright light to these short, dark days, I made a list of three ways to love your garden through the winter months. Photo courtesy of The Enchanted Home 1.   CREATE A W...

I've been wanting to do a proper marker rendering tutorial for awhile, but haven't carved out the time, so thought I'd share a quick sketch I did for my students in the meantime.  It's pretty rough, but does show my simple approach to rendering a plant symbol in marker. As you'll see below I'm...

A few weeks ago I wrote a post on my favorite summer blooming alliums; Allium 'summer beauty' and Allium 'millenium'. Now I'd like to share my late-summer/early fall favorite: Allium senescens ssp. glaucum. When combining these three in your garden you'll have an amazing display of polka-dots fro...

Polka dots are sweet and dainty, while being a great companion to other bold patterns. Yes, the polka dots in my garden are sweet, but they are also tough as nails and take center stage. My garden's polka dots are two lovely summer-blooming alliums: Allium 'summer beauty' and Allium 'millennium'....

When you walk through a fabulous garden, do you ever wonder why you're so intrigued with it? Maybe its because that garden was successfully organized into lovely rooms. Each room has its own focus such as a place to dine, a lawn to play croquet, a quiet reading nook, a beautiful area to dry laund...

There are three design elements to consider when creating a planting design: form, texture and color. Each plant you choose encompasses these characteristics in different ways. Though you should consider all of these it is important to know that form is the most consistent, then texture and fina...